


The pre-trembling of a house that falls

by involuntaryorange



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/involuntaryorange/pseuds/involuntaryorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An experimental batch of Somnacin has a strange but adorable effect on Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The pre-trembling of a house that falls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kedgeree11 (kedgeree)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kedgeree/gifts).



> kedgeree11, upon winning Inceptiversary bingo, asked me to write a drabble based on [her adorable fanart](http://kedgeree11.tumblr.com/post/148267738869). I gladly complied. And then it turned into a full-length fic.
> 
> I also made her beta it, because I'm bad at giving gifts.
> 
> Title from Galway Kinnell's "Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight."

Eames’s first thought upon waking was that Arthur had vanished and left his clothes behind. Maybe the evangelicals were right and Judgment Day had finally come, although it seemed a bit unfair that Arthur got to ascend to heaven and Eames didn’t. Maybe Arthur secretly donated loads of money to charity.

Then he noticed the lump wriggling inside the clothes, followed by a whimpering sound. And then a small head popped out of Arthur’s collar — the head of a young boy with a furrowed brow and dark, tousled hair.

Eames’s jaw dropped. “What the _bloody fuck_?” He looked to Dom, who was opening and closing his mouth like an oddly squinty fish.

“Arthur?” Dom asked the boy, who was extricating himself from Arthur’s too-big trousers (a sequence of words that Eames never thought he’d string together).

“Yeah. Who are you?” the boy said, worming his arms through his dangling shirtsleeves.

“You don’t remember me?” Dom asked.

The boy frowned— and, yes, he was definitely Arthur. “Are you one of Dad’s friends?”

“Something like that,” Eames said. Arthur redirected his frown at Eames, and it was simultaneously entirely familiar and totally foreign. _There’s probably a German word for how surreal this is_ , Eames thought to himself. Out loud, he said, “I’m going to call Yusuf.”

“Good idea,” Dom said. He crouched down so that he was at eye level with Arthur, who was standing next to his lawn chair wearing his oxford like a dress. “Do you want some ice cream?” he asked, his voice an octave higher than usual.

Arthur rolled his eyes with an impressive amount of disdain for a grade-schooler. “I don’t like ice cream. Do you have any fruit?”

“I have an apple in the fridge; you’re welcome to it,” Eames said as he scrolled through his contacts. Arthur made a considering noise and shuffled off to the kitchenette while Eames waited for Yusuf to pick up.

 

***

 

“Why is our point man suddenly two feet tall?” Eames demanded as soon as Yusuf answered the phone.

There was a pause. “Did I not mention that side effect?”

Eames scrubbed a hand across his face. “No, Yusuf, you did not.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure that I would have remembered you saying ‘oh, P.S., this new batch of Somnacin might _turn one of you into a fucking six-year-old_ ,’” Eames snapped.

Cobb hissed, “Language!”

“I’m seven and a half!” Arthur shouted with his head in the fridge.

“Noted,” Eames called back. “Then you’re old enough to grab an apple and close the fridge instead of staring into it like it’s the portal to bloody Narnia.”

“I never thought you’d take so easily to fatherhood,” Yusuf said, sounding amused.

“Shut it, Yusuf. How do we fix this?”

“There’s not much you can do. It will wear off in a day or so.”

Eames sighed. “Lovely. That’s not going to be inconvenient _at all_.”

“At least it wasn’t you, mate. I’ve seen your baby photos. Not pretty.”

“Piss off.”

“I’ll bet Little Arthur is as cute as a button,” Yusuf said.

Eames looked at Arthur, who was now sitting on the counter swinging his skinny bare legs back and forth as he bit into an apple. “You’re not wrong.”

 

***

 

Eames was tasked with watching Arthur while Dom ran out to buy him some clothes. He was nervous, never having spent much time around children, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy. Arthur didn’t try to stick any forks into electrical outlets or cut his own hair; he was content to sit cross-legged on the floor and ask Eames questions. A _lot_ of questions.

“But how does it _work_?” Arthur asked, squinting at the PASIV.

“I have no idea,” Eames answered. “Normally, uh, my colleague maintains it.”

“Is it me?”

“Bloody hell, you didn’t miss that, eh?”

“What happened?” Arthur asked.

“We went down into the dream together and when we came back up you were…” Eames gestured to Arthur. “Seven.”

“Seven _and a half_ ,” Arthur corrected.

“Right, sorry.”

“How old was I before?”

“Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

“Wow.” Arthur looked impressed. “That’s _really_ old.”

Eames tried not to cringe.

“What am I like when I’m grown up?” Arthur asked, looking at Eames intently.

Eames snorted. “You’re a right pain in the arse.” Arthur’s mouth turned down a bit, and Eames felt compelled to continue. “You’re… brilliant. Sarcastic. A perfectionist. Most of the time you make me feel like a tit, but when I do something right and you compliment me I feel like I’ve won the World Cup.” He chuckled. “You’re a handsome bugger, too.”

“Gross.” Arthur wrinkled his nose in distaste, but he looked pleased nonetheless.

“You asked,” Eames shrugged.

 

***

 

Dom returned to the warehouse with several large bags in tow. He opened one with a flourish and pulled out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt emblazoned with a cartoon monkey and the words “Just Hangin’ Out!” Arthur looked unimpressed, but he grudgingly took the clothing into the bathroom to change.

The other bags contained an assortment of colorful toys. Eames raised an eyebrow at Dom and said “Really?”

“Look, Eames,” Dom said patiently, “I’m a father. I know kids. I know what they’re like.”

Later, when Arthur had turned up his nose at every single toy that Dom bought, Eames had the maturity and restraint not to say “I told you so.” Although he thought it _very loudly_ in Dom’s direction.

 

***

 

Eventually, after spending several hours playing with the scale model of the dreamscape, Arthur yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I’m tired. Can I go to bed?”

Eames and Dom looked at one another. Arthur — pre-regression Arthur, that is — had his own hotel room, but you couldn’t leave a seven year old ( _seven and a half_ , Eames’s brain corrected itself) alone, could you? Eames knew at least that much about childrearing.

“Uh, sure,” Dom said. “We can go back to the hotel. You can sleep in my room.”

“Can I stay with Eames?” Arthur asked.

“Sure you can,” Eames said, ignoring Dom’s crestfallen expression. His stomach did something unfamiliar and gymnastic as Arthur took Eames’s hand and waited to be led.

 

***

 

Eames turned the TV to a nature documentary and turned the volume down low as Arthur climbed under the blanket. “Will this bother you?” he asked.

“No, it’s nice,” Arthur said. The queen-sized bed practically swallowed him up.

“All right, I’m going to turn out the lights. Do you need any water or anything?”

“No,” Arthur said, through another giant yawn.

Eames clicked the lamp off and sat down in the easy chair. He put his feet up on the desk and watched David Attenborough murmur about sloths and listened to Arthur’s quiet breathing grow deeper.

 

***

 

When Eames woke up, it was still dark, the TV was playing an infomercial for an exercise machine, he had a hell of a crick in his neck, and Arthur was putting on the clothes Eames had grabbed from the warehouse.

_His_ clothes.

He didn’t startle when Eames said “Back to normal?” but he didn’t turn around to face Eames, either.

“Looks that way,” he replied.

Eames watched the light from the television flicker across Arthur’s back, which suddenly seemed enormous.

“Thanks,” Arthur said, turning toward Eames but avoiding his eyes. “For, you know.” He made a gesture that Eames assumed meant “watching me when Yusuf’s ridiculous experimental Somnacin de-aged me by two decades.”

“No worries,” Eames said. “It was interesting.”

Arthur let out a single, hard laugh. “Right. I’ll see you in the warehouse in a few hours.” He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Eames moved the five feet from the chair to the bed and went back to sleep.

 

***

 

Arthur was… different after that. He avoided Eames. It’s not like they’d been the best of friends before, but now when they were in the same room Arthur seemed to not even be able to look at Eames. When Eames asked questions, Arthur answered them tersely. When Arthur had questions, he asked them to Dom, even if they were questions only Eames could answer.

They finished the job and split up and by the time Eames got back to the warehouse it was empty and wiped clean.

 

***

 

Eames didn’t see Arthur for six months after that. Several times he signed up for a job that Arthur was supposed to run point on, but when he showed up he was inevitably told that Arthur had dropped out at the last minute due to a “family emergency.”

Eventually, Eames tracked Arthur down in Montreal, working a job Eames had turned down (but not until finding out where and when it was taking place). He flirted with the girl at the front desk until he finagled Arthur’s room number out of her, and then he wasted no time in knocking on Arthur’s door.

He heard footsteps move toward the door and saw the peephole momentarily darken. Then he heard Arthur’s sigh and the sound of a magazine being ejected from a gun. The door swung open a few inches.

“Why are you here, Eames?” Arthur sounded tired.

“Because you’re avoiding me and I need to know what I did.”

Arthur sighed again. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Then why haven’t I seen you in half a year?”

Arthur looked up at the ceiling. “You might as well come in.” He closed the door to undo the security latch before opening it all the way, and walked back into his suite, not bothering to see if Eames was following him.

Eames was following him, of course. He sat down on the edge of Arthur’s bed and looked at him. Arthur seemed worn; he was still in his dress slacks and an oxford, but the shirt was untucked and he was barefoot.

“So?” Eames prompted.

“So what?”

“Are you going to tell me why you can’t bear to look at me?”

At that, Arthur finally looked at Eames. Eames had forgotten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that stare.

“It’s not that— I just don’t—” Arthur huffed in frustration and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it looking slightly wild. “I’m just— I’m _humiliated_ , Eames.”

That was not what Eames was expecting. “Humiliated? Why?”

“Because I was a kid, I was a seven-year-old kid—”

“Seven and a half,” Eames interrupted.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “A seven-and-a-half-year-old kid, and you _took care of me_.”

“You didn’t do anything embarrassing. You were adorable.”

Arthur smiled like it was painful. “Yeah. Great. ‘Adorable.’ That’s how I’ve always wanted you to describe me.”

“I don’t understand,” Eames said.

Arthur put his hands over his face and moaned. “It was bad enough before. But now you’ve literally been my babysitter. You _tucked me into bed_ , for fuck’s sake. Nobody wants to sleep with someone they babysat.”

“…You want to sleep with me?” Eames managed as the weight of Arthur’s confession washed over him.

“I’ve wanted to sleep with you for a fucking _decade_ , asshole,” Arthur said, looking miserable. “But now whenever you look at me you’re just going to see _him_.”

“Arthur.” Eames grabbed one of Arthur’s hands and pulled him until he was facing Eames. “I had no idea.” He tilted his head to the side, considering. “Although I did find it strange that you preferred me to Dom.”

Arthur groaned and tried to yank his hand away but Eames maintained his grip.

“Arthur. How much do you remember from that day?”

“I remember all of it. Unfortunately.”

“Then you remember how I described you?”

“Yeah.”

“That hasn’t changed.”

Arthur gave another half-hearted tug at his hand and said nothing.

“It’s not true that when I look at you I see him. When I looked at _him_ , I saw _you_. I mean, not the sexy bits, obviously” — Eames was gratified to see Arthur smirk at that — “but the brilliance, the perfectionism, the sense of humor, all the bits I fell half in love with ages ago.”

Arthur looked down at Eames, startled. “What?”

“It just confirmed for me that those things had been in you all along. It was like seeing a home movie or something. Just… more interactive.”

Arthur sat heavily on the bed next to Eames. “Really?” he asked, examining Eames’s face.

“Really,” Eames confirmed. “Although I will say that you were much less argumentative as a child. It was a nice change of pace.”

“Shut up,” Arthur said, dimpling, although he didn’t give Eames a chance to defy his command because he kissed him right after.


End file.
